Euphoria
by Autumn Win-Dow
Summary: It was an inconceivable notion which she didn't want to believe, but she did. For buttercupbella's birthday.


Dedication: To _buttercupbella_, as it is her birthday today. My FFn best friend, an extremely talented author, and just an amazing person in general. I really recommend you read her works, because they're seriously beautiful pieces just waiting to be read. Erika, you've always been there for me. and even though you're younger than me, your works never fail to awe me, and your insights and sweet messages really inspire me to keep writing when I'm on the verge of quitting. I really hope I can do the same, and even though we have different time zones, I love it when we manage to find time to talk. :)

Note: The bolded words are the titles (mostly kept the same, some edited for the sake of flow and purpose) of _buttercupbella's _fics. Erika, this is why I said I had fun writing this.

Disclaimer: Kinda need to put this in because of references to Dracula.

* * *

**_Euphoria_  
**

**by Autumn Win-Dow**

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Sometimes she would simply wonder if she had grown up too quickly for her conscience to follow—she often held two possibilities deep in her mind, hidden from everyone but herself.

Perhaps it was her non-existent love for the elements of childhood—did she even have these sorts of feelings in the first place? As the avid reader she once was, she was able to observe the life of a child through storybooks—filled with countless **once upon a times **and bubble baths with **two rubber duckies**. They were the representative symbols of childhood luxury and fantasy, yet she could not remember a time when she had ever felt connected to either of these 'common' aspects.

Because really, Hotaru Imai had no childhood. She was never the **princess **in the assumed silk gown—she never placed herself in the coveted role of **Briar Rose**, the sleeping beauty, even when she herself was a child easily influenced by the softest whispers.

Instead, Hotaru was raised to be fully aware that all these tales of love, life and drama recited to her ears **time and time again** were completely **make believe. ** She was never subject to **those ten year old lies**—however, she didn't feel as if **she'd risk anything, **_**anything**__, _to turn back time in order to believe them.

It was something which was completely **irrevocable.**

Perhaps it was the reason why she kept her true dreams clandestine to all but herself—she wasn't a naïve, ignorant girl, but she often held her fantasies hidden underneath the protective shields of stiff **osmium **which encircled her mind.

It didn't help when the girl which she grew up with was Mikan Sakura—the brunette who distrusted stuffed bears, grew a fondness for the deceiving aesthetics of the **jawbreaker**, and spent most of her time declaring how dazzling the night sky was every night. As the polar opposite of Hotaru Imai, she was easily deceived by the **tales as old as time **itself, as well as the silly rumours spread by their classmates that the old, greasy janitor of the south wing was in fact a **killer **by nature.

Hotaru found such rumours to be absolutely pathetic, but Mikan—for some reason which even the young genius couldn't fathom—defended the 'honour' of the south wing murderer by declaring that 'even **Lucifer was once an angel'**. Simply speaking, Mikan Sakura was the type of girl to convince people that the bad were once good—but she agreed with the idea that they were bad, nonetheless. That in the minds of these criminals was a **necessary evil**, intended to do what it did. That even **the little match boy **who bore holes in the back of her skull whenever she disrupted the peace of the classroom was someone with a truly genuine **heart**—just a boy whose ability to break away from his burdens was granted **engourdi**, and his burdens themselves deemed **clandestine.** From the rantings of Mikan Sakura, Hotaru would always scoff at the idea that the way she talked about him made him sound like some sort of **altruist**, a focal point of admiration, or even a silly crush.

"_Imai, stop that rabid best friend of yours before she starts complaining about some godforsaken __**island of dolls **__in the imaginary north wing cupboard. __**Yours truly, Natsume Hyuuga**__."_

Even though the young pyromaniac meant the message as a **call of duty**, Hotaru was intent on highlighting his **misconceptions **and reminding him that she wasn't Mikan Sakura's carer—she was her own woman, and if he wanted restraint on the crazy brunette, he would have to do it himself.

He scoffed in reply, **backfiring** that even though she was best friends with the crazy brunette she referred to, she didn't quite understand the reasons for Mikan's behaviour.

Hotaru knew that Natsume was right—she didn't understand anything, from the obsession for boys to the extravagant, completely _unrealistic _dreams she would inform her about the next morning. At first, she convinced herself that it simply wasn't her niche—her niche was in her ability to perfectly spell, correct and **punctuate** her sentences in class, recite the **Fibonacci **sequence in inhumanly quick succession, as well as study the complicated-to-others **jargon** involved in the studying of nanotechnology. What was mainly on her mind were the facts learnt during her **last lesson **rather than what _could _happen in the future. Hotaru held no concern for the resident pretty boy's **new neighbour **nor the new airbrushed fashion magazines arriving in her classmates' **mailboxes** every month. Not even Mikan's strange love for spinning on her feet beneath the raindrops appealed to her—Hotaru couldn't even consider herself a female after observing for sixteen years what a 'girl' acted like.

She wasn't the beautiful goddess Lucy—the woman bitten by the very first bloodthirsty vampire. She didn't possess the assets which Lucy was infamous for—the very assets which attracted the vampire to her beauty, her skin, her _blood_. Hotaru was well aware that her blood would never come as appealing—she was considered by others as _cold-blooded_.

A vampire never likes cold blood, after all.

Hotaru, at a young age, was forced to say **goodbye **to her inner **Lucy.**

But never did she know that her inner Lucy would return—clawing back into her with sharper nails and gritted teeth, almost taking over her collected brain many years too late.

**Almost, but not quite.**

Hotaru couldn't quite discover his intentions when she ran into him on a **midnight in Paris**, as he sat next to her on a **park bench** while she was **theorizing** the possibilities as to why her invention hadn't succeeded in its presentation that night. He was a hybrid—A Franco-Japanese man with an assumed **predilection **of Japanese women over French women.

_Is he a philanderer? _She thought to herself immediately as she ignored the kind smile of the blonde man—although he was, from the kindness of his heart, attempting to make friendly conversation with the business-oriented Hotaru Imai, she was quite intent on maintaining herself as the childhood-depraved girl from her younger years—with a static heart and an unmoving set of lips.

But eventually, she ended up thinking to herself, _**or maybe not.**_

Hotaru would often consider—despite all she had been raised to believe for the two decades she had lived in the world of evil—if what she was experiencing in Europe was **all just a dream**. The swift, non-stop panorama as he—Ruka Nogi—drove her along **Highway 340** seemed fake, like a montage of images as fast as the spinning of a film reel. The vibrant flashes of blue as they drove, **speeding past the seaside **of the infamous beach in Cannes, felt like a sudden **apricity **of colour to her eyes as she could vaguely hear his laughs in the background. The fused **smell **of **tuna **and salt tingled her senses and combed itself into her usually neat black hair, and she only broke her eyes away from the sea when Ruka spoke up.

"_Why did you come with me anyway, Hotaru?"_

"…_I want to let myself sink into a dream __**before spring comes**__."_

It was an answer more honest than anything else which escaped her usually sealed lips, and when she turned her head back to meet his vivid **blue eyes**, she did not—no, she _could not—_feel a single ounce of regret in admitting her weakness to this stranger from another country.

She did figure out something about Ruka Nogi as she travelled with him for a day—unlike many other people, he was a pretty easy man to read, but still maintained a mysterious aura which did not intimidate, but it confused people.

"_Why did you take me with you, Nogi?"_

"…_I'm just a man with a hopeless case of __**wanderlust**__, and it so happens that I don't want to be alone this time."_

But no matter how free she felt at the time—even when her inner Lucy had been unleashed, revealing the young girl with the dreams once locked up in steel chains—she was no **seer. **She had no clue what would happen **in a short while**, even if it was completely obvious—eventually, Hotaru and Ruka would have to part, only taking with them the memories of freedom and togetherness felt during the day long car ride. Besides Mikan, Ruka was the first person she spent watching the natural mystic of the **milky way**, and even **under the thundering sky**, she found the sight beautiful.

After they separated, with the moon as their only witness, she wondered if the new feeling in her chest was her inner Lucy's **divine retribution **for being forced out, until she realised one thing which she had been disillusioned with until then.

_**Did she ever**__ leave?_

And for the first time, she answered herself differently.

_**She never did.**_

The femininity inside of Hotaru Imai never left—it simply remained enclosed, with its **butterfly wings **folded in until she was ready to break the barriers enclosing what had been forced into her at a young age.

Hotaru was confused about Ruka Nogi at first, but her worries eventually morphed into a truth more solid than anything she ever considered in her twenty years.

In one day, she had fallen.

All the fairy tales she had once scoffed at as a teenager were now completely meaningless—how in the world did Hotaru Imai, a woman with a resolve firmer than lead, leave a car with a wavering heart? It was an inconceivable notion which she didn't want to believe, but she did.

However, it was too late. They were **strangers, again, **and there was a slim chance that she would meet him again.

Hotaru would travel internationally, and he domestically—this fact almost confirmed her belief that it was only a day of freedom with **no strings attached**, but in the end she had formed her own imaginary strings in order to hold on.

A confession, **of words unspoken**, was something she made to herself as she declared the passing on of her momentary happiness.

"_**Once, I loved you."**_

But of course, she was no **seer. **

Three years later, she would end up in Spain. A voluptuous, dark haired woman would make her way over to her and murmur a phrase in Spanish which Hotaru could barely understand.

"**Creo** que el hombre con el pelo de oro está interesada en ti."

_I believe that the man with the golden hair is interested in you._

…_**If only they knew.**_

Hotaru would turn to meet the same pair of blue eyes she once felt entranced by three years prior, and as he approached her, he held out a broad hand and grinned with the same enigma which did not fail to baffle her once again.

"Would you like to travel with me for a day, miss? **Like we used to.**"


End file.
